Megamind for Fan Fiction Writers
The release of the film in theaters and now on DVD, sparked a number of fan authored works, most found on FanFiction.net. One of the hardest and most fulfilling parts to creating a story is getting into the life of the characters and understanding who and what they are. It's even more challenging when there is only one film and one novel that gives us insight. Many things that we'd like to know or use for a story are not available. So, what do we do? Well, one of the best things to do is to check out the internet and hope there is some information out there someone else has managed to find so we don’t have to wrack our brains and strain our eyeballs too much! So, for all the authors out there, here’s my little contribution of information about our favorite blue guy to hopefully help all of you with your writing. MEGAMIND The main protagonist in the film is Megamind, our super intelligent anti-hero, hero and resident alien bad boy gone good. And while he is the star of the film and novel, there is, really, little known about him, personally. Most things are left up to interpretation by fan authors. After a little searching and contemplation, here are some things I've gathered to, hopefully, help writers. THE BASICS Gender: Male Height: 5' 5" (http://www.kidshype.com.au/megamind-fun-facts) Skin color: Blue Hair color: Black/Baled Eye color: Brilliant green Birth Planet: Unknown name, Glaupunk Quadrant Allies: Minion (sidekick), Roxanne (love interest), Music Man (Formerly Metroman) Enemies: Metro Man (formerly), Warden (debatable), Ms. Jane Doe (Grade school teacher), Hal Stewart/Titan Occupation(s): '''Villain (formerly), Metro City's Defender '''Abilities: Intelligence Aliases: '''Megamind, incredibly handsome criminal genius and master of all villainy (himself), Sir (Minion), Intellectual Dweeb (Hal), Space Dad (Alter ego), Bernard (Alter ego/Disguise), Little buddy (Music Man), Defender of Metro City (Mayor/city people) '''Current residence(s): Earth, Metro City, Metro City Prison For The Criminally Gifted, Evil Lair Family: Unnamed Parents (deceased), Minion (best friend and caretaker) NOW, THE NOT-SO-BASICS Age: One of the most commonly asked questions I have found about Megamind, but that has no official answer, is how old is he? This is where personal interpretation comes in. And while this is hardly a fact, I hope that it provides authors with a rough point to work with. Going back to the film, in the very beginning, Megamind, who is narrating the story, tells us he is eight days old when his parents send him from their dying planet to save him. He crashes on earth Christmas day. This would put his birth date December 17th. The hard part, now, is finding out what year. For this I, once again, went back to the movie. I studied his voice, his actions, and how he compares to the other characters in the film, especially Metroman. When we see Metroman as an adult, he has graying sideburns. So this, immediately, knocked Metroman and Megamind, out of the twenty-something bracket. Next I contemplated thirties or forties? I knew they weren't beyond their forties. They didn’t look or act that old. So, this involved going back and forth between looking at how Megamind acts as an adult, his physicality, and his energy. I also went back and looked at the beginning where we see him and Metroman as babies. To compare them as babies, it appears that Metroman is at least a year or two old when he is sent from his planet, as opposed to Megamind, who is only eight days old. I also looked at how old Roxanne may be. We know Hal, her cameraman, is twenty-eight. That is stated fact in the film when Minion is looking into who he is after being hit with the infuser gun. I was under the impression, howe ver, that Roxanne started out as a reporter before Hal came to work for the channel 8 news, based on her physical appearance and maturity, as well as seeming work experience. So I imagine she's older by a few years. In her early thirties. This helped narrow Megamind's age even more as well as working nicely at placing Metroman's age. So, after careful consideration of all these things, I placed Megamind at age thirty-five, summer of 2010 (since a reference scene of a calendar in the film has events taking place in June). If he turns thirty-six that coming December, that would make his birth year, 1974. Personality: (From the main Wiki Page) Megamind is smart, determined, egotistical, stubborn, childish and somewhat overdramatic. Even when he considered himself evil, he never hurt or killed anyone and even though he threatened Roxanne with alligators and several dangerous devices, he never actually harmed her, which is the reason why she wasn't afraid of him. He tends to mispronounce words like "Metro City" as "Metrocity" and "School" as "Shool" as he lived his whole life either in jail or the Evil Lair and had very little social interaction with people other than Minion, Meteroman, or Roxanne Ritchi. Foods: Megamind also has a ten dency toward sweet foods and highly caffeinated drinks, as is seen when Minion brings a large box of donuts and cups of coffee. It could be theorized that his constant state of excitement and jittery movements at times, as well as his outlandish reactions to things are a result of the high sugar, high caffeine diet. It does, however, make sense that, with his mind constantly at work, he would require a diet to keep his body moving at the same pace. It is also a possibility a diet high in Omega 3’s would be needed to support his brain function. However, the main source of Omega 3’s is in fish and there would be a possible conflict there given his caretaker, Minion, is a species of fish, even if alien to earth. At one point in the film, he has scribbled on a note to ‘eat more veggies’. Since we only see him eating donuts, it’s possible he could be a vegetarian who also has a high sugar and caffeine diet. This is further supported by his and his parents physical appearance. Megamind’s people worked on expanding their cerebral abilities. Physically, they are not built as hunters, as they have a very lean muscular structure. Their ancestors may have, at some point in their planet’s history, ate animals to survive, but may have later discovered another protein source as humans have in soy products. The Big Blue: Megamind’s skin color is blue, as well as his home planet. Silver is known to cause skin to pigment to gray/blue-gray when exposed to great amounts of silver in chemical forms. Silver also has the highest electrical conductivity of all metals. As we saw in the film, the lightning bolt, as well as the electric blue color, appears to be an important symbol to Megamind’s people. Silver also has several other uses in thermal, electrical, medical, and monetary means. It would be an ideal metal on all fronts to help advance a civilization with a high quantity. So it’s quite possible his home planet was made, mostly, of silver, or was, at least, silver at its core, giving the people and animals of the planet continued exposure. Th e blue appearance of the planet could also be a reflection of the oceans, as earth’s blue appearance comes from our oceans. It’s possible there was a great deal of water on Megamind’s home planet and fish species were plentiful and important, based on Minion being a gift from his mother. I also found it interesting that Megamind’s Evil Layer was near the water. So water, or being near the water, seems to be another important aspect to who and what he and his people are. As of 04/14/2011, Pitbulllady over on FanFiction.net, replied to this fan reference with a few valuable points about Megamind I thought should be shared. She wrote: "Gonna weigh in with a few observations here that are probably relevant and might be helpful. On the DVD, the commentators mention that Megamind's "super power" is his refusal to give up, that quality that us fanciers of American Pit Bull Terriers refer to as "gameness". He simply won't quit; he might temporarily retreat and "regroup", but he always comes back into the fray. He DOES have red blood,like you said, and in one scene, where he's complaining about his "spider bite", he rubs his eye, and the eye turns red, just like ours would if we rubbed it. Someone just posted a Blu-Ray screen cap on Deviant Art, in which red blood vessels in the edge of one of his ears can be seen. His blue skin color is NOT the result of exposure to colloidal silver. Silver causes not only the skin to turn blueish-gray, but also affects the whites of the eyes and mucous membranes. Megamind's skin color is most likely the result of the arrangements of collagens(proteins) in his skin, which causes the blue light wave frequency to be reflected more than others. This is what causes the blue skin coloration seen in certain birds and mammals, like wild turkeys or mandrills, even though they have the same pigment, Melanin, that we do. There have actually been real blue people here on Earth, caused by a recessive gene, and many stories of races of blue people who used to live here. When Megamind arrived on Earth, the prison inmates were already wearing orange jumpsuits, a change made from the mid-70's to early '80s from the traditional black-and-white striped convict suits, so as you pointed out, it had to have been at least mid-seventies. Biologically, he's probably VERY close to us, given that ever visible aspect of him is either fairly typically human, or within that range of possibilities. There have been healthy, normal humans with blue skin and large heads, and again, you pointed out that his head is not THAT huge compared to those of the human characters in the movie. It would be highly unlikely that the parts we cannot see(it's a family movie, after all)would be noticeably different from the corresponding parts of a human." This was very helpful information and, while I wish to leave the comments about silver being a plentiful metal on Megamind's home planet, I have to say, the actual blue pigment of his skin makes more sense as Pitbulllady stated. Again, these things are all open to interpretation of the fic writers, but I hope both provide interesting theories for people to try out. Anatomy: Let’s start at the top, first, shall we? Obviously, aside from the blue skin, the thing we notice about Megamind, right away, is his large head. And while I have seen many fan arts depicting him with a massive head, in the film, it’s really not so massive to warrant a bobble-head appearance. Let’s say, excluding the excessive cranium, the main part of Megamind’s face is that of an average male, around 9" - 9 1/2" from chin to the top of the forehead, about 2 1/2" to 3" above his eyebrows. Looking at a frontal view of his face and applying the measurements, it leaves a difference of about 6" above the 9" to the very top of his head. That makes the full length of his head 15". Applying the measurements to a side view, from the front of his forehead to the back of his head measures about 10". The width of the top most part of his head is about 9". This gives Megamind’s head a circumference of about 38". Moving down, if we continue to apply the base head measurements as a reference to the rest of his body, we find his shoulders are approximately 16" to 17" across with a 10" to 11" chest and a 10" waist and hips, as his trunk is fairly straight and not hourglassed as it progresses down. And, visually surmising, his shoe size appears to be 8 or 8 1/2. Now for the rest of it. Megamind has blue skin with pink accents at his ears, cheeks and lips, suggesting he does have red blood, just like humans. In fact, aside from skin color and a few physical size differences, most notedly the large head, he appears to be just like any other human male. This also lends heavily to the reason why his parents sent him off to earth, since we were likely the one nearby planet with an atmosphere like theirs and with a similar species to their own as far as genetic make up and function. In the film, when Titan challenges Megamind, the Warden/Minion refuses to let him go unless he shows remorse for what he’s done. Megamind tells him he’s sorry from the ‘blackest part of his heart’, implying he does, indeed, only have one heart, as opposed to the two that some theorize he has in order to pump more blood to his large brain. Due to the size and weight of his head, as well as the seeming resistance to great injury in his battle with Titan, his bones could be denser than huthumb||man bones. His skin could also be a little thicker and stronger. At the end of the battle he doesn’t seem to be suffering from any injuries, but it is possible, as was written in b7-kerravon’s ‘Aftermath’, that he could be able to block out sensing pain and injury for a time, if he needs to, while threatened and, once the threat is over, his body will register it and work on healing. Due to the fact the Megamind film is geared more toward children, no scenes of true injury were shown, but between the time he defeated Titan and the reopening of the museum with his statue, he could have been recovering. So this area is completely open to speculation. Scarlet_Frost a writer/animator, over on FanFiction.net, attended an animation expo and heard what the creative team beihind Megamind had to say about him: " ... they informed many of the people there, the curious ones, that Megs, aside from the big head and blue skin, was a man just like a human. His 'male parts' worked the same way and looked the same way as any human man. He has a penis and scrotum just like a normal human. The writers only wanted to emphasize his skin and head when creating the character, it was much later when they decided to make him an alien. He originally started out as a type of 'two-faced-batman' character. He was slightly genetically different outside due to a freak accident when he was a child and growing up was treated different by many. This was when he became evil. Also he used to have hair on his head, they scrapped that idea when they saw the creative interpretations of what he looked like by the artists." (Information by Aislin Avalbane, 04/15/2011.)